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The inversion of space-time ...

Started by Baruch, October 23, 2018, 07:06:16 AM

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Baruch

Most people have a realist notion of space-time.  That is the point about which discussion was made here recently, regarding if the future already exists and if free will is real.  There is another notion ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Barbour

That time is unreal.

https://iai.tv/video/time-space-and-being

The original notion of absolute space and time, which are shown by relativity to be inaccurate ... was based on Newton's theology.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Hakurei Reimu

This is arguing over semantics. Like most philosophical discussions, any sufficiently deep analysis ultimately results into an argument over semantics. Time is the phenomenon of things, well, happening and that it, well, passes. And the universe does indeed have both of these phenomena. Time exists in every sense that is physically relevant. It is thus real by any sensible definition.

No, being relative doesn't mean it's not real. It's a more complex phenomenon than being a universal clock throughout the universe, but even if you take a trip around the universe using time dilation to make it within your relative lifetime, you'll still be an old bugger when you make it back to Earth, and the Earth will age even more than you did by any physical measure.
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SGOS

Quote from: Hakurei Reimu on October 23, 2018, 08:17:16 AM
This is arguing over semantics. Like most philosophical discussions, any sufficiently deep analysis ultimately results into an argument over semantics. Time is the phenomenon of things, well, happening and that it, well, passes. And the universe does indeed have both of these phenomena. Time exists in every sense that is physically relevant. It is thus real by any sensible definition.

No, being relative doesn't mean it's not real. It's a more complex phenomenon than being a universal clock throughout the universe, but even if you take a trip around the universe using time dilation to make it within your relative lifetime, you'll still be an old bugger when you make it back to Earth, and the Earth will age even more than you did by any physical measure.
Huw Price appears to clear that up quite well.  It's seems to be once again that basic foundation of sloppy semantics, the basis for most philosophical musing.  Here's where Price's description takes me:

People get befuddled over the concept of space time invented by Einstein, especially after spending their whole lives experiencing both space and time and having a good handle on the individual concepts.  But Einstein didn't invent space time.  He was just trying to describe a component of the universe which is not yet understood, which even he didn't understand.  His biggest disservice to mankind might have been in choosing a deceptively poor name for this not understood quantity he was trying to describe.  He chose to use the word describing universally understood human concept of time to be the name for this thing he was struggling to describe.

Subsequent physicists, in deference to Einstein, picked up the concept of space-time and ran with it, but most are enlightened enough to qualify that neither they or Einstein are talking about human experience, but something else entirely.  They signal this by referring to this mysterious quantity as "something that Einstein calls space-time."  I've heard this qualification more times than I can count: "Einstein called this quantity of the universe space-time."  It's just a name for a thing.  In a moment of poor judgment, science hijacked a well understood word to describe something entirely unrelated to the original meaning, and it created a useless chaotic philosophical debate out of the semantics.  Nothing new about that.

While most physicists attempt to make it clear that they are not talking about human experience, it opens the door to less intellectually honest crowd and creates a semantic paradox useful to trouble makers to accuse humanity of suffering from an illusion.  They twist the semantics into an assertion that "time does not exist," and that everyone has been bamboozled through their experience to think that it does.  To which I would reply, "Sorry!  Time is real enough.  If you want to talk about physics, sort out your semantics, and talk about physics.  If you want to talk about time to me, you are welcome to use the common definition.  Otherwise, fuck off."

Baruch

"No, being relative doesn't mean it's not real." ... that was the first "saving of appearances"  the second being ...
being statistical (Born interpretation of non-relativistic QM) doesn't mean it isn't real.

And that is semantic jiggering itself.  Just as the "atom" doesn't mean what it says .. once we found out that atoms are "divisible".

So who has a semantics hair shirt on?  Einstein, Rutherford, Heisenberg etc.  One might call these, clever "saves" when physics itself was in danger of going off the rails prior to 1940.

I can see some say ... only theoretical physicists are true philosophers ... and Hawking is G-d ;-)  Hierophancy of neo-Pythagoreans.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Hakurei Reimu

Quote from: Baruch on October 23, 2018, 12:38:55 PM
"No, being relative doesn't mean it's not real." ... that was the first "saving of appearances"  the second being ...
being statistical (Born interpretation of non-relativistic QM) doesn't mean it isn't real.
Says you. I challenge you to take a relativistic velocity trip to the edge of the galaxy, come back, and tell me that the time you and I experienced was somehow not real. Hell, just stay where you are and tell me that the clock doesn't advance whether you like it or not.

Nothing overturns a well-verified experiment, and the phenomenon of time is very well-verified. Time is a well-verified part of the universe, and we're kind of stuck with it. Again, just because it's more nuanced phenomenon than Newton's universal and uniform ticking across the universe doesn't make it not real. It's precisely analogous to one person measuring a cube along its side and claiming it as the size of the cube and you claiming that's not a real measurement when you can measure the same cube across the diagonal and get a different length.

Quote
And that is semantic jiggering itself.  Just as the "atom" doesn't mean what it says .. once we found out that atoms are "divisible".
Again, says you. We named the atom before we knew about processes that could divide it. And anyway, you're now engaging in a genetic fallacy: just because the name of the atom is derived from "individible" doesn't mean that the word has to remain wedded to that meaning in perpetuity.
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Baruch

Quote from: Hakurei Reimu on October 23, 2018, 03:39:28 PM
Says you. I challenge you to take a relativistic velocity trip to the edge of the galaxy, come back, and tell me that the time you and I experienced was somehow not real. Hell, just stay where you are and tell me that the clock doesn't advance whether you like it or not.

Nothing overturns a well-verified experiment, and the phenomenon of time is very well-verified. Time is a well-verified part of the universe, and we're kind of stuck with it. Again, just because it's more nuanced phenomenon than Newton's universal and uniform ticking across the universe doesn't make it not real. It's precisely analogous to one person measuring a cube along its side and claiming it as the size of the cube and you claiming that's not a real measurement when you can measure the same cube across the diagonal and get a different length.
Again, says you. We named the atom before we knew about processes that could divide it. And anyway, you're now engaging in a genetic fallacy: just because the name of the atom is derived from "individible" doesn't mean that the word has to remain wedded to that meaning in perpetuity.

Thought experiments?  Surely only for psychotics ;-))

Change of muon lifetime (statistically) based on relative speed of muon beam ... proven.  But what does it all mean?  There you have both things in one package ... relativity and QM, and you don't need to even know the details of the Dirac equation.  But according to materialism, there is no meaning.  To experiment or not, doesn't matter.  The result of the experiment doesn't matter ... as long as materialists look good.  Thales said ... the world is full of gods.  And indeed it is.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Einstein observed that the light reflected from a clocktower arrived to his eyes after "some" time and therefore was "in the past".  In that regard, nothing we experience (other than internally) can be "present".  However, that doesn't stop me from catching a baseball, falling slowly upright (walking), or dodging a wayward person in a store.  What we have is an ability to adjust to time-discrepencies on a nearly plankish scale.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

Quote from: Cavebear on December 05, 2018, 04:39:30 AM
Einstein observed that the light reflected from a clocktower arrived to his eyes after "some" time and therefore was "in the past".  In that regard, nothing we experience (other than internally) can be "present".  However, that doesn't stop me from catching a baseball, falling slowly upright (walking), or dodging a wayward person in a store.  What we have is an ability to adjust to time-discrepencies on a nearly plankish scale.

Here and now are relative, not absolute, or did you miss that part ;-)
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Quote from: Baruch on December 05, 2018, 07:52:49 AM
Here and now are relative, not absolute, or did you miss that part ;-)

You missed mine.  Because all external observations are, by definition, "in the past" to a factual degree, the only "here and now" is internal.  I'm not sure what "speed of internal thought" is.  That gets into defining "reality".  But let's consider that not involving our sense of time.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

Quote from: Cavebear on December 09, 2018, 10:49:51 AM
You missed mine.  Because all external observations are, by definition, "in the past" to a factual degree, the only "here and now" is internal.  I'm not sure what "speed of internal thought" is.  That gets into defining "reality".  But let's consider that not involving our sense of time.

You are out of time ... nearly.  Just as I am.  Whether you make sense of that or not.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Quote from: Baruch on December 09, 2018, 10:51:35 AM
You are out of time ... nearly.  Just as I am.  Whether you make sense of that or not.

Just sitting here designing my Solstice cards to family, friends, and cat-bloggers between posts.  So far, I have a good cat-blogger picture of the cats around the tree.  Never mind that I don't have a tree and the cats weren't around it. That's what Photoshop is for.  The friends/family card is trickier.  I have to be in it and taking a decent picture of myself is hard.  And think of a nice unoffensive holiday message from an atheist to my ancient religious Aunties...

Maybe I should cause them heart attacks and use Munch's Odinesque graphic.  LOL!
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

Quote from: Cavebear on December 09, 2018, 11:09:02 AM
Just sitting here designing my Solstice cards to family, friends, and cat-bloggers between posts.  So far, I have a good cat-blogger picture of the cats around the tree.  Never mind that I don't have a tree and the cats weren't around it. That's what Photoshop is for.  The friends/family card is trickier.  I have to be in it and taking a decent picture of myself is hard.  And think of a nice unoffensive holiday message from an atheist to my ancient religious Aunties...

Maybe I should cause them heart attacks and use Munch's Odinesque graphic.  LOL!

Solstice?  You are pagan then?  Sorry, the Odinesque graphic is copyright.  So the Intellectual Property police would have to liquidate you.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Quote from: Baruch on December 09, 2018, 11:12:58 AM
Solstice?  You are pagan then?  Sorry, the Odinesque graphic is copyright.  So the Intellectual Property police would have to liquidate you.

Nah, just completely atheist.  I like the idea of the days getting longer after the solstice.  No meaning to it other than that.  I do note that all winter holidays DO occur on what the adherents THINK is the solstice.  It's a real event, so I am satisfied with it. 

BTW, I decorate the house.  Blue lights lit on the Solstice.  I'm even being energy-efficient, I bought blue LEDS.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

Quote from: Cavebear on December 09, 2018, 11:18:30 AM
Nah, just completely atheist.  I like the idea of the days getting longer after the solstice.  No meaning to it other than that.  I do note that all winter holidays DO occur on what the adherents THINK is the solstice.  It's a real event, so I am satisfied with it. 

BTW, I decorate the house.  Blue lights lit on the Solstice.  I'm even being energy-efficient, I bought blue LEDS.

You are too California to live on the E Coast.  Just don't go Oregonian (at your current location).
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Quote from: Baruch on December 09, 2018, 11:28:33 AM
You are too California to live on the E Coast.  Just don't go Oregonian (at your current location).

Weren't the Oregonians the advanced species on Star Trek?  Anyway, I hate constant misty rain.  1/4" per day every day. 
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!